Wesley J. Smith

The Hastings Center Report is probably the most prestigious bioethics journal in the world. Thus, when an opinion article appears in its pages, the ideas expressed are definitely in play among the bioethical elite. I bring this up because an article appeared in the May-June edition advocating . . . . Continue Reading »

I have been watching this case since it first hit the news in Arizona. On May 30, Jesse Ramirez was arguing with his wife when their SUV rolled over. He was left unconscious. The doctors said his case was “hopeless,” that he would never wake up. The wife moved him to a hospice and had . . . . Continue Reading »

We often think of “suicide tourism,” as sick or despairing people traveling to a suicide friendly venue like Switzerland to have help shuffling off this mortal coil. Several years ago, George Exoo, then a Unitarian minister, did the suicide circuit in reverse. Admitting to running the . . . . Continue Reading »

The UK’s National Health Care service is such a mess that some are now openly calling for explicit health care rationing. (Of course, ad hoc or sub rosa rationing already exists within the NHS.) One idea, according to this article in the Scotsman, is to make up a list of treatments that would . . . . Continue Reading »

Some of our discussions here at SHS about human exceptionalism have considered the prospect for Artificial Intelligence (AI), and engaged the advocacy by some that such intelligent computers or robots—meaning those that had attained true consciousness—be declared persons and accorded . . . . Continue Reading »

A Canadian woman with MS traveled to Switzerland with her husband for assisted suicide. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has demanded a legal investigation. I doubt that will happen, but I post this story because I want y’all to look at the way in which the reporter romanticized family . . . . Continue Reading »

Columnist Jeff Jacoby has written a very good column in the Boston Globe about the hue and cry among pro ESCR advocates in the wake of President Bush’s veto of expanded federal funding criteria. Jacobi, who inhabits the right of center political realm, disagrees with President Bush’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Get ready for the “manimals.” In Sunday’s Washington Post, Will Saletan describes how some scientists have cut themselves loose from the tether of self restraint and are busily planning the creation of human/animal chimeras with increasingly human attributes. From his column:So . . . . Continue Reading »

The Economist, which I consider the best newsweekly in the world (and no bylines!), published an article apparently bemoaning the increased rate of suicide around the world. And yet, although the article ostensibly urges governments to try and prevent suicides, it actually seems to back the notion . . . . Continue Reading »

I have decided to highlight stories like this because I have concluded that the bitter ethical controversies over ESCR and human cloning have distorted the true picture of what is happening in the exciting field of biotechnology. So much of the hopeful research that is moving into human trials is . . . . Continue Reading »